Monday, October 25, 2004

The Black Hole

Sometimes I feel like my life turns into a big black hole that just sucks me down for several weeks while the rest of the world passes me by. Then, eventually, I re-emerge and wonder where the hell the time went!

It's been a seriously un-fun couple of weeks around here. Ryan came down with stomach flu on 10/14. This was full-on flu with stuff coming out of both ends...repeatedly. In between changing him and cleaning him up, I had to run multiple loads of laundry, disassemble and wash a piece of furniture and steam clean the carpet in our family room. While all this was going on, DH was preparing to leave for 10 days to Minnesota. He left early on 10/16 - although not as early as he would've liked considering that his shuttle to the airport never showed up! I had to call my poor dad at 5:30 AM to come get him and drive him to the airport. I couldn't take him myself because by this time, I was coming down with the stomach flu, too.

I spent the next few days crawling between my bed and the bathroom floor (spent a lot of time just laying on that floor, too). Thank God for my parents who came over and helped with Ryan (who was still sick, too) or we never would've made it.

I finally made it back to work on Tuesday, 10/19, but started feeling a sore throat coming on that afternoon. Greeeeaaaaattt! I made it to work Weds and part of Thursday at which point I threw in the towel and went home sick. Fortunately, Ryan was well enough to go to daycare all those days so I only had myself to worry about until 5 PM when I had to go pick him up.

DH got home Saturday night and I was so glad to see him, but I still felt so crappy that I'm afraid I didn't muster up much of a "welcome home" for him. Managed to make it out briefly yesterday long enough to get Ryan's Halloween costume - he's going as Spiderman - but spent the rest of the day in bed. I made it to work today, but still feel pretty lousy. Had to take cold medicine to keep me from dripping all over the keyboard. Plus, it's cold and gray and rainy out which just reinforces that "I wanna go home and curl up in bed" feeling.

Throughout all of this, I got NOTHING done on my jewelry. I kept thinking I should drag out a couple of orders and work on them while I was home sick, but I just couldn't make myself do it. It's awfully hard to focus when you feel so rotten (and the cold medicine doesn't help, either).

Plus, I lost all the time I needed to work on Halloween stuff! We play a game in our neighborhood where you leave anonymous treats on the doorstep of several neighbors and I'm late in getting mine done. I wanted to wait until I was as healthy as possible since I'm baking from scratch and figured the neighbors wouldn't want a dose of "virus du jour" along with their treats! I hope to get it done tonight, but it'll be tough. I HATE cooking on weeknights after a full day at work. Then there's Ryan's Halloween party at daycare on Friday that I have to make something for as well. And I can't do it Thursday night because DH has a board meeting and won't be able to watch Ryan while I'm baking.

At least he seems mostly recovered from all the illness although he still has that same nasty-sounding cough that he's had all along. I'm going to try to get him in to see the doctor again this week, but am sure that once again, they'll tell me it's nothing. I just don't understand how a kid can have a nasty, phlegmy cough for a MONTH and it not need an antibiotic to clear it up. GRRR!

Lastly, to the person who sent me a very nice comment on this Blog - it was great to hear from you! I agree that it's amazing how similar our lives are (jewelry, small children, etc.) I tried to reply to your e-mail, but couldn't get it to go through :-( Loved the comment, tho, so please keep in touch!

Cheers to all of us "super-moms" out there who somehow manage to hold all this stuff together and get everything done each day!